


A Perfect Alibi

by Bluewolf458



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Gen, Sentinel Bingo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-12
Updated: 2018-06-12
Packaged: 2019-05-21 11:36:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14914656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bluewolf458/pseuds/Bluewolf458
Summary: Written for the 2018 sentinel bingo prompt 'secret twin/doppleganger'





	A Perfect Alibi

****

A Perfect Alibi

by Bluewolf

Eric Weaver was an up-and-coming politician who, though barely thirty, already had something of a reputation for downright honesty. Not for him the double-talk so beloved of too many politicians, that - when it came down to it - said nothing. His attitude had gathered him few friends among his fellow politicians, but had made him the darling of the people he represented.

It therefore came as a big... huge... massive surprise when he was identified as the person who had, very publicly, shot and killed a local businessman.

Certainly Morris Atherton was a man who deserved to be shot at least once a week, if not oftener. It was widely believed that the workers he employed were illegal immigrants who were being utterly exploited, underpaid and overworked; Vice suspected, but had been unable to prove, that the younger workers were also being used as prostitutes. But it was not easy for the police to investigate a man who was the golfing buddy of the Mayor, who promptly told the Chief of Police that he wanted Cascade PD's best men investigating the murder... after Eric Weaver proved to have a cast-iron alibi for the time of the killing.

***

When the case landed on his lap, Simon Banks was not a happy man. He immediately decided to share the misery by calling in Jim Ellison and his civilian ridealong, and handing the report - such as it was - to him. Jim glanced at it, Blair peering at over Jim's shoulder, and once he had registered just what it was, Jim glared at Simon.

"Don't blame me," Simon said. "Directive straight from the Mayor."

"One of these days I'm going to pull a few spectacular failures," Jim muttered. "Give Brown and Rafe the chance to be your 'top team'."

Simon smiled, but it was a genuine smile. "Never," he said. "You're too conscientious. Jim Ellison is too conscientious; Sentinel Ellison is even worse. Or should that be 'better'?"

Jim glared at him again, then looked back at the report.

"The pig got up and slowly walked away... " Blair muttered.

"The... what?" Simon sounded more than puzzled.

"You can tell a man's character by the company he keeps?" Blair said. "Well, actually it's 'You can tell a man who boozes by the company he chooses', but it's been sort of... well, generalized since the poem was first written. Nobody's sure who actually wrote it in the first place and there are a few versions of it - "

Jim and Simon looked at each other with long-suffering expressions on their faces.

"But basically - this guy is going home drunk, and collapses in the gutter; a pig comes and lies down beside him; and then this woman passes and says 'You can tell a man who boozes by the company he chooses' - and 'the pig got up and slowly walked away'."

"I support there's a point to that?" Simon asked.

"Mayor Curtis called this Atherton guy one of his friends, right?"

Simon nodded.

"Says a lot about Curtis, doesn't it."

Jim and Simon looked at each other again. "He's got a point," Simon said.

"Though... you can't really fault the man for his loyalty to someone he called 'friend'," Jim mused. "And you could argue that Curtis didn't know Atherton's reputation - "

"If he didn't it was because he refused to listen to anything that was said about the man," Simon growled.

"Or he'd heard the rumors, maybe asked Atherton about them, was told they were completely false and chose to believe his friend?"

Simon frowned. "You aren't usually so ready to believe well of Curtis."

"I know." Jim sighed. "But lying through his teeth, telling his influential friend what he wanted to hear, was well within Atherton's ideas of morality. And Curtis... I don't like the man, but he's not the total waste of space Symons was - " naming Curtis's predecessor. "Symons was the perfect example of someone who'd hit his level of incompetence."

"Has anyone thought... " Blair began, and hesitated.

"Go on," Simon said resignedly. He was quite sure he didn't really want to hear Blair's suggestion.

"Well... We know Atherton's reputation. Exploiting illegal immigrants, all that sort of thing... But at least he was giving them work, even if it was with lousy conditions and lousy pay. What are those people going to do now?"

"They've probably scattered," Simon said uneasily. "As soon as they knew their 'boss' was dead... "

"And where would they go?" Blair asked.

"There are a dozen other guys like Atherton in Cascade," Simon said gloomily. "And even with miserable conditions and pay... they'd know they could get work there."

"So basically they're out of the frying pan and into the fire?"

"Probably," Simon said. "Or out of one frying pan and into another. And because they're illegal immigrants, there's very little we can do about it. These 'employers' have provided them with paperwork of a sort, but that's really only going to satisfy a casual glance. Proving anything, though... not easy. And if we can... what happens to the workers? Deported back to where they came from, and if they're not instantly arrested there as malcontents, inside a week they'll be trying to get back into America - because even with being exploited, overworked and underpaid, it's probably better than anything they have in their own country."

***

Jim's first move was to speak to the man who had seen Atherton killed. John Bedford had 20/20 vision; he had had a clear view of the killer, but hadn't been in a position to do anything except call the police - who, despite a rapid response, had been far too late to apprehend the killer.

Bedford had been in no doubt that the man he saw killing Atherton had been Eric Weaver - even though he was reluctant to believe it of the politician - and Jim knew that he was telling the truth.

He went to the scene of the killing, Blair at his side, without expecting to find anything, and that was what he found - nothing. He went to where Bedford said he had seen the killer - on top of a nearby building - and found nothing apart from one or two marks where the rifle used to take the shot had been sited. Whoever had shot Atherton had retrieved the empty cartridge and taken it away with him.

There was absolutely nothing to find.

In the complete absence of any other trail they could follow, Jim decided that having a word with Eric Weaver would have to be their next move.

A quick phone call was enough to get them a meeting with him for later in the day - fortunately he was in his Cascade office that week instead of his other office in Olympia - and having absorbed what little information the Homicide detectives who had first spoken to Weaver had provided, they headed off to meet the man.

A briskly efficient secretary showed them into Weaver's office. "Detective Ellison, sir, and Consultant Sandburg."

Weaver stood and held out his hand. "Detective Ellison. Mr. Sandburg. Now, how can I help you?"

"I'm afraid it's a repeat of a visit you already had a few days ago," Jim said.

"Concerning the murder of a Mr. Atherton?"

"Yes, sir. The man was a personal friend of Cascade's Mayor Curtis, and... well... Mayor Curtis is insisting that Major Crime, rather than Homicide, investigates the killing.

"We've seen Homicide's report, obviously, but because a witness positively identified you as the killer... "

"You have to ask the same questions as Detective Cranshaw."

"Pretty much. I'm sorry."

Weaver gave a rueful smile. "Not your fault. I know all about the unnecessary repetition that bureaucracy demands."

"Thank you, sir. Can you tell me... "

***

After they left Weaver and returned to the PD, one simple phone call to Olympia confirmed that on the day in question, at the time Morris Atherton was killed, Eric Weaver had been at a meeting with the State Governor - and it was hard to think of an alibi that could be more water-tight than that.

Not that Jim had needed that phone call; he had detected no alteration in Weaver's heartbeat, and knew he was telling the truth when he denied having killed Atherton. But he knew he had to do everything by the book.

With absolutely no leads, the case went cold even before it was warm. Mayor Curtis was far from happy, but - although he would clearly have liked to do so, if only because he belonged to a different political party - he couldn't deny that a meeting with the State Governor did provide Weaver with a complete alibi.

***

Late morning three weeks later there was another killing, this time a very public drive-by shooting. A car stopped just long enough for its driver to aim a hand gun at Peter Peterson, a man known to the police as a drug dealer and pimp, and shoot him before accelerating away.

A dozen people identified the shooter as Eric Weaver.

Two Patrol cops went to Weaver's office to arrest him - to be told that he was at that moment in an airplane and en route to Washington, DC; his plane was due to land just after 1 pm... two hours later. The flight from Cascade to Washington, DC, took just over four hours. The plane had left Cascade at 9; the shooting had been just after ten.

The Washington police were contacted and met the plane when it landed... and sure enough, Eric Weaver was one of the passengers.

Once again, despite the evidence of witnesses, he had a cast-iron alibi.

***

This new case was dropped straight onto Jim's desk.

"You don't even need to speak to Weaver about it," Simon growled as he gave Jim the report. "How can anyone be identified as a killer when he was five hundred miles away, in an aircraft flying five miles above the ground?"

"Remember the Juno case?" Blair asked.

Both Jim and Simon stared at him. "You're thinking... an identical twin?" Simon asked.

"Certainly a double. Jim, I think that once Mr. Weaver gets back to Cascade you need to have a word with him about relatives who might resemble him - though you hear of people who closely resemble someone and aren't related at all. I met someone once - in Australia - who looked a lot like me. We actually had a conversation about it but decided that no, we weren't related in any way that we could think of. If you saw us apart you could easily think he was me or I was him; together, it was fairly easy to tell us apart."

***

Weaver returned to Cascade a week later, and the following day Jim - and Blair - went to see him.

"Detective Ellison?" Weaver said. "Don't tell me - this has something to do with why the police met me at Dulles a week ago? All they could tell me was that they had been asked to make sure I was on that plane."

"I'm afraid so, sir. There was another murder, and several witnesses, independently of each other, identified you as the killer. When we checked your office, it was to be told you were already in the air on the way to Washington."

"That's... weird."

"There is a precedent of sorts," Jim said. "A year or two ago we had a similar situation, where a well-known Cascade man was identified as a killer - and he had a solid alibi. Turned out he had an identical twin, and it was the twin who did the killing while he was somewhere very visible."

Weaver shook his head. "I'm an only child, Detective. My parents were divorced not long after I was born, and I have no idea where my mother is. My father never remarried, so I don't even have a brother - a half brother, rather - who could resemble me."

"What about cousins? Anyone in your family who looks enough like you - "

Weaver was still shaking his head. "My father was an only child too. So I don't have any cousins. Maybe on my mother's side, but if so I don't know them. As far as I know, since my father died three years ago, I don't have any relatives."

"That's tough," Blair said sympathetically. "I do sort of know what it's like - I just have my Mom and one cousin, and I don't see either one very often, but I know they're there... "

But Weaver shook his head yet again. "Dad and I were close, and I do still miss him, but I've never really felt the lack of other relatives. Does that sound... well, callous?"

"Not really," Jim said. "I fell out with my father and brother when I was eighteen, and had no contact with either one until fairly recently - and that was by sheer chance. We're reconnecting, but I doubt we'll ever be close. I've got one cousin I see occasionally, but he works for the lighthouse service, so he's out of touch much of the time - haven't seen him for... oh, at least four years now. Though come to think of it, he has a birthday coming up... might be worth giving him a visit to celebrate." He seemed to shake himself out of the vaguely introspective moment. "Anyway, it means I don't have much in the way of family either. My friends are my family."

"It's odd, though," Weaver said slowly. "Whoever is doing these killings looks like me, but he seems to be choosing times when I can prove I'm nowhere near Cascade. As if he actually wants me to have an alibi."

"That was a feature of the Juno case," Jim said. "The killings were all done when the 'innocent' twin could prove where he was. He was actually the one who organized the killings; not even the men who employed him knew about his twin. It had them all puzzled - how he could carry out the hit at a time he was very visible somewhere else."

"How did you solve the case?" Weaver asked.

"In some ways, sheer blind luck," Jim admitted. "We discovered that someone had been hired to take out the assistant DA. When we went to warn her - she was at home and although we tried to phone her, she didn't hear the phone - I saw someone on the roof of the house opposite - went to tackle him and he went off the roof. Four stories to the ground. While he was in hospital unconscious, 'he' tried to shoot me out on the street. When we checked the hospital - the man who'd gone off the roof was dead. So either I'd been shot at by a dead man... or there were two of him.

"When we checked back, we discovered that they were born in Ireland, and the locals remembered that the mother had had twins. Their father was IRA. He was killed when they were about a year old - they were adopted by two different families but as adults they tracked each other down and came to America. The one stayed hidden, the other made himself visible and was also the one who was employed to be the hit man.

"In the end, he tried again to shoot me, and I shot him. Killed him."

"It was possibly the most humane way things could have ended," Blair said quietly. "Although they'd been brought up apart, they seemed to be soulmates. Tommy was never going to get over his brother's death."

"That's something I've never quite understood," Weaver said. "Someone knows he's adopted - though a lot of families don't tell an adopted kid that he's adopted - but how does he know he has siblings?"

"Maybe he finds that out as a by-product of wanting to find his natural parents," Blair said. He sighed. "I've sometimes thought I'd like to find my father, but it's more curiosity than a need to know anything about him. And... well... I know it's impossible. Mom has always said she didn't know who he was, and considering everything... even if she did know, she probably never told him she was pregnant. 'Commitment' is a word that terrifies her, though I've never known why. If she knew her boyfriend was the sort of responsible guy who would insist on marrying her because she was pregnant... she wouldn't tell him, she'd break things off and get the hell out of Dodge. Not stop running till she was a thousand miles away. I love her, but I have to admit that I've never really understood her."

"I know what you mean," Weaver agreed. "There have been times I've thought I'd like to meet my mother, find out what she thinks went wrong between her and Dad. All he ever said was that once they were married and living together, it turned out they were incompatible. They stuck it out, trying to make things work, for a little over a year, then cut their losses. He never said why they were incompatible, though. Could be she'd never wanted a child, which would explain why she didn't take me with her when she left." He sounded totally matter-of-fact about it. "I'm glad she didn't, Dad gave me a very good life and I was very happy - "

"But you can't help wondering," Blair said.

"Yeah." He shook his head. "I don't even know her name. Her own name, that is."

"Jim - could we use police resources to try to track down the ex-Mrs. Weaver?" Blair suggested.

Weaver looked at him. "Wouldn't you have to give a reason?"

Blair grinned. "We have a precedent - the Juno twins. One well-known, the other under the radar; the known one with an alibi for the times of the killings. You don't know anything about having a brother - but what if you did, and your mother took him, leaving you with your father?"

"There's a simpler way," Jim said. "We could check the registration of Mr. Weaver's birth. That would at least tell us if you had a twin brother, sir. And if the answer is yes - that's when we try to track down your mother."

He grinned at the identical expression of _'Now why didn't I think of that?'_ on both faces.

***

The answer was yes. Eric Weaver was registered as the older twin, with a younger-by-half-an-hour brother, Robert. It also gave them the mother's name - Jessica Morton.

That was when Jim started using police resources to try to track her down.

Without luck.

The search, predictably, found several Jessica Mortons in Washington State - but the dates of birth were all wrong. With an expression of grim patience on his face, Jim extended the search, and this turned up a Jessica Morton with the correct date of birth, in Portland; but she had died three years previously. And yes - she had had a son called Robert.

But a check of the address established that the house was now owned by a man called Davis Faulkner. Robert Morton had disappeared. There was no Robert Morton in Portland with the correct date of birth; and an extension of the search eventually established that there was no Robert Morton with that date of birth anywhere in America.

Eric's mysterious twin had, presumably, emigrated. And he could have gone anywhere.

"Emigrated is too simple an answer," Blair said quietly when he and Jim reported to Simon. "At least when we have someone in Cascade who's identical to Mr. Weaver. Changed his name seems more likely."

"Not easy to do, though," Simon said. "Not in a world where proof of identity is demanded for so many things."

"Depends on your resources," Blair told him. "If I wanted to disappear, change my name... I know someone who could get me false papers. I don't say they'd be 100% foolproof, but they'd certainly be 95%. Good enough for a casual check - and let's face it, a lot of routine checks are very casual. You said that yourself a while ago."

"I'm not going to ask," Simon said. "I don't want to know."

Blair's lips twitched slightly. "You'd be surprised at how many people I know," he murmured. "A surprising number of them courtesy of Naomi."

"I really don't want to know," Simon repeated. "What I don't know - "

Blair's budding grin widened. "Plausible deniability," he said.

"No - absolute ignorance!" Simon growled.

"All right," Blair agreed. "So will you let me check up with one of my... invisible contacts, an anonymous snitch, and see what I can discover?"

Simon stared at him for a moment, then turned his attention to Jim. "How much do you know of this... invisible contact of Sandburg's?"

"Not a thing," Jim said cheerfully. "After all, if it was someone he met through Naomi, it was almost certainly before I knew him. The only acquaintance of Naomi's that I ever met was Charlie Spring."

Simon rolled his eyes, and Blair chuckled. "Simon, compared to some of them Charlie was positively normal." His mood changed abruptly. "Some of the time Naomi lived celibate, a lot of the time she didn't - but she never stayed long with any of them; I think three months was about the longest she ever stayed with anyone. Some of her men liked me, or at least treated me well enough to make her think they accepted me... but a lot didn't. And some of them... well, like I said, made Charlie look normal. Anyway, after Naomi moved on, I stayed in touch with three or four of the ones who did like me. And I think one of them might be able to help us find this Robert Morton. All you need to know right now is that I'm going to contact a... well... temporary father." And as Simon shook his head Blair turned and scurried out.

Simon glared at Jim. "Now that he's gone - just how much do you know?"

"Nothing," Jim said. "But Simon - I have faith in Blair's integrity. Even if this guy was a good 'temporary father', I wouldn't think Blair would stay in touch if he was anything but a genuinely good person."

"Even if he's some kind of criminal?"

"Depends on what kind of criminal. You know as well as I do that some things that are classified as crimes are also called victimless."

"If it's a crime, there's bound to be a victim," Simon muttered. "Even if it's only the person who's committing the crime."

To that, Jim had no answer.

***

Meanwhile, Blair headed for the garage, collected his car and drove towards the beach. Once there he parked and walked down to the water, knowing that the soft lapping of the waves would act as a sort of white noise in the unlikely event that Jim had followed him.

He took out his cell phone and dialed one of several numbers that were stored only in his memory.

"Sutton."

"Hello, Uncle Bruce."

"Blair?"

"Who else?"

"Good to hear from you. But why do I think this isn't just a 'Hello' call? I'm guessing you need something?"

"Well... yes. And before you ask, I'm in the middle of nowhere, on a deserted beach, so there's nobody to overhear any part of this conversation."

Bruce Sutton laughed. "You learned paranoia from me, didn't you."

"Caution," Blair said.

"Okay, let's call it caution. So what do you need?" The vice was still amused.

"It's a little complicated... You know the politician Eric Weaver."

"One of the good ones," Sutton said.

"Twice recently he's been fingered by witnesses as a killer; but each time he's had a solid alibi. The cops did some checking and discovered he had a twin he didn't know about - his parents divorced when he was just weeks old, his father kept him and his mother took the other one."

"I think I see where this is going."

"The mother reverted to her own name, and her son grew up as Robert Morton. The cops think it's Morton doing the killing, but there's nobody called Robert Morton with the correct date of birth anywhere in America; which makes me think he's changed his name.

"The cops are actually quite surprisingly sympathetic; the two men he killed were a menace to society. They deserved to die."

"That's a more bloodthirsty comment than I ever thought I'd hear from you," Sutton said.

"One of the victims was exploiting illegal immigrants, the other was a pimp and drug dealer," Blair said. "Okay, you could say the first one was giving work to those immigrants, but basically they were overworked and underpaid. You could go as far as call them slaves. As for the drug dealer... "

"I see what you mean," Sutton said.

"And the way Morton is going, there will be more deaths of people like those. All right, I can understand why... but what Morton is doing isn't the answer."

"Vigilantes can be dangerous too," Sutton agreed.

"The two deaths so far, Mr. Weaver had a positive alibi - it was as if Morton was able to find out a time when Weaver could prove he wasn't in Cascade. But will that always be the case?

"Uncle Bruce, I know you have your own reputation to maintain, and I know you only provide papers for people who have a good need for them. But can you help us? Can you find out what name Morton is using? The cops will only know that I got the info from an unnamed snitch."

Sutton was silent for a moment. "He's using the name Grant Scott. When he came to me I noticed the resemblance to Weaver... but you know better than I do how chance resemblances can happen. He said his mother had recently died and he was trying to escape from a stepfather who had been abusing him for years; I believed him.

"Someone with a background of abuse could well start killing people he saw as abusing others. If he can be helped... "

"I'll see what I can do. And thanks, Uncle Bruce. We really must meet up some day."

"I'd like that - but as long as I hear from you occasionally... How is your mother these days?"

"Still interfering in my life when she thinks she can get away with it," Blair said. "But seriously? The last time I saw her, she'd become very friendly with a psychic. He didn't seem to be quite as much of a user as some. And she's spending a lot of time in Nepal - there seems to be a guru there whose teaching has quite impressed her."

Sutton sighed. "Why didn't she stay with me?"

"Commitment was never her bag," Blair said. "I never knew why she was so scared of it. But she still is, and I suspect she always will be."

"As if someone she trusted maybe betrayed that trust?"

"It's possible, but she's never going to tell me. Anyway, Uncle, I do appreciate your help. And just before I go - you're keeping well?"

"Yes. But I heard that you've been injured once or twice? That cop you're riding with isn't looking after you properly."

"Jim's saved me more than once," Blair said. "Any time I've been hurt hasn't been his fault, Uncle. Give you my word."

They exchanged a few more words, then Blair hung up and headed back to his car.

***

With Rob Morton's new name now known, it was relatively easy to find him.

He admitted knowing that he was Eric Weaver's twin brother. He harbored no ill-will towards his brother, feeling they had both suffered as a result of their parents' divorce, though slightly envious of his brother's trauma-free childhood. His mother hadn't actually remarried, but had lived with Davis Faulkner for many years, despite his abusive behavior towards them both. Just why she had stayed with him when she hadn't stayed with Edward Weaver, Rob didn't know.

Faulkner knew he had stayed in Portland because of his mother. After Jessica died, Rob had pretended to be resigned to the abuse he suffered, until he saw a chance to escape and took it - and took with him a sizeable amount of money that Faulkner had amassed, but never banked, from prostituting Jessica. He'd moved around a bit, and on the way managed to pick up forged papers that gave him a new identity, finally moving to Cascade, believing that Faulkner - who, he was sure, was still looking for him (if only because of the money) - wouldn't expect him to go there, knowing that the presence in Cascade of his twin would further muddy the waters as far as Faulkner was concerned, make him think that any report he might get of his stepson's presence in Cascade was simply a sighting of Eric.

But he also realized that he could use Eric as a cover, giving him a chance to save other people who were being abused by killing their abusers.

***

The court decided that Rob was, if not insane, psychically unbalanced and had him committed to Conover under the name Grant Scott. Eric, however, visited him regularly, and after some months spoke to the psychiatrists there and arranged for his brother to be given into his care, although they insisted that Grant get regular visits from a psychiatrist. Both men agreed to that.

Men in important positions often hired a 'look-alike' to impersonate them; Eric hired his brother as a look-alike, which gave him an income and a reason to live in Eric's home...

Eric had led a happy life. Grant had known little happiness in his life. But now Grant learned happiness as the brothers, who had liked each other from the first time they met, became very close.

Both felt it would be wiser not to let it be known that they were twins; it would give away too much of their background. So they passed as two men with a chance resemblance. But they were both content, each knowing that he had a secret twin.


End file.
